Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

Under pressure McLaren can't 'BS' drivers - Neale

40

McLaren CEO Jonathan Neale says the team is under pressure and "can't really BS" Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button amid its struggles with Honda.

A double retirement in Austria was the second race in succession neither McLaren finished, with both cars reaching the chequered flag on just one occasion this season. With Honda struggling for both performance and reliability, Neale says

"There's a lot going on and in any partnership or any arrangement, when you're under pressure and you are a team that is not performing on the circuit where any of us would like to be at the moment, the key to getting through that is transparency and moving towards the issues as they emerge," Neale told ESPN.

"We're the same with our drivers, the days of being able to put your hand on a driver's shoulder and say 'Trust me, it will be all right' are gone.

"Especially with Fernando and Jenson, they are pretty canny individuals and they know what they are doing, they have been around for a long period of time and you can't really BS them. They believe in what they see and will stay with you as long as you get the results."

And Neale says McLaren has shown enough progress so far this season to back up any predictions of future improvement.

"Closing the gap from five seconds to two seconds since the start of the season, which is huge and is what we have done, gives the driver confidence when we tell him what is coming at the next few races. He can measure us against that past improvement because we either did or didn't get the job done.

"I think Fernando in particular said some very positive things in Austria after a pretty torrid Friday and Saturday. He said he watched the guys in the top three press conference after qualifying [Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel] and they didn't look happy, but he was happy even though he was having the mother of all weekends in the car."

Click here for the F1 drivers' girlfriends gallery

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.